Hamas's Armed Wing Targets Israeli Army Vehicles

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, announced Wednesday that they targeted Israeli military vehicles in the Gaza Strip.

The group issued separate statements on the developments on their Telegram channel.

They said their members targeted "two Zionist vehicles" with Yassin 105 shells in the Al-Amal neighborhood in the city of Khan Younis.

"After returning from the frontlines, our fighters confirmed the destruction of an Israeli Merkava tank with a Shawaz explosive device in the Al-Hawawz area west of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip," it said in another statement.

They said in another statement that their fighters "blew up a Merkava tank with a Shawaz explosive device on Salah al-Din Street in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City."

There has been no comment from the Israeli army on the statements.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli army announced three incidents resulting in the death of one soldier and the wounding of three others in the Zaytoun neighborhood over the past 24 hours.

The statements from the Al-Qassam Brigades come at a time when the Israeli army is escalating its operations in Khan Younis and the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City after it announced two days earlier the start of a ground operation for several weeks "focusing on the infrastructure of Hamas, which has not been destroyed yet."

Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7. The ensuing Israeli bombardment has killed at least 29,313 people and injured nearly 70,000 with mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala -